Presence Of Decoupling Research Articles

Efficient simple liability assignment rules: A complete characterization

In this paper we consider a general class of rules called simple liability assignment rules under which the assignment of liabilities for losses arising out of interactions involving negative externalities can be coupled for some combinations of the levels of nonnegligence of the interacting parties and decoupled for other combinations, and explore the possibility of efficient assignment of liabilities in the presence of decoupling. The main result of the paper establishes that a simple liability assignment rule is efficient if and only if its structure is such that (i) whenever one party is negligent and the other is not then the negligent party is made to bear the full loss and the nonnegligent party bears none; (ii) whenever both parties are negligent they are made to together bear at least the full loss; and (iii) whenever both parties are nonnegligent they are made to together bear at most the full loss. Thus it follows that the assignment of liabilities under an efficient rule has to be coupled only when one party is negligent and the other is not and hence decoupling liability is not inconsistent with efficiency.

Decoupling: a step toward sustainable development with reference to OECD countries

The purpose of this study is to closely examine the evidence of decoupling of economic growth from environmental degradation as experienced by OECD member countries. In order to analyze these aspects and to explore the comparative assessment, this work has utilized available statistical data of OECD. The study employed DPSIR methods outlined in the OECD report, which state that Indicators measure the decoupling of environmental pressure from economic growth for analyzing environmental pressure/degradation indicators, such as population growth, energy production, greenhouse gas (GHG) emission, CO2 emission, SOx emission, NOx emission, water abstraction and waste with economic indicator, i.e., nominal and per capita GDP. The major finding of this study is that among the selected indicators, some resulted from relative decoupling rather than absolute decoupling, which means that the environmental pressure still increases, albeit at a lower rate than economic performance, and that the presence of decoupling is not an indication for sustainable economic development.

Assessment of Pain Expression in Infant Cry Signals Using Empirical Mode Decomposition

The presence of decoupling, i.e. the absence of coupling between fundamental frequency variation and intensity contour during phonetic crying, and its extent, reflects the degree of maturation of the central nervous system. The aim of this work was to evaluate whether Empirical Mode Decomposition (EMD) is a suitable technique for analyzing infant cries. We hereby wanted to assess the existence and extent of decoupling in term neonates and whether an association between decoupling (derived from EMD) and clinical pain expression could be unveiled. To assess decoupling in healthy term neonates during procedural pain, 24 newborns were videotaped and crying was recorded during venous blood sampling. Besides acoustic analysis, pain expression was quantified based on the Modified Behavioral Pain Scale (MBPS). Fundamental frequency and the intensity contour of the cry signals were extracted by applying the EMD to the data, and the correlation between the two was studied. Based on data collected in healthy term neonates, correlation coefficients varied between 0.39 and 0.83. The degree of decoupling displayed extended variability between the neonates and also in different cry bouts in a crying sequence within an individual neonate. When considering the individual ratio between the mean correlation of cry bouts during a crying sequence and their standard deviation, there seems to be a positive trend with increasing MBPS value. This might indicate that higher stressed subjects have less consistency in the investigated acoustic cry features, concluding that EMD has potential in the assessment of infant cry analysis.

Rigorous bounds on the performance of a hybrid dynamical-decoupling quantum-computing scheme

We study dynamical decoupling in a multiqubit setting, where it is combined with quantum logic gates. This is illustrated in terms of computation using Heisenberg interactions only, where global decoupling pulses commute with the computation. We derive a rigorous error bound on the trace distance or fidelity between the desired computational state and the actual time-evolved state, for a system subject to coupling to a bounded-strength bath. The bound is expressed in terms of the operator norm of the effective Hamiltonian generating the evolution in the presence of decoupling and logic operations. We apply the bound to the case of periodic pulse sequences and find that in order to maintain a constant trace distance or fidelity, the number of cycles---at fixed pulse interval and width---should scale in inverse proportion to the square of the number of qubits. This sets a scalability limit on the protection of quantum computation using periodic dynamical decoupling.

In Situ Temperature Jump High-Frequency Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Experiments: Enhanced Sensitivity in Liquid-State NMR Spectroscopy

We describe an experiment, in situ temperature jump dynamic nuclear polarization (TJ-DNP), that is demonstrated to enhance sensitivity in liquid-state NMR experiments of low-gamma spins--13C, 15N, etc. The approach consists of polarizing a sample at low temperature using high-frequency (140 GHz) microwaves and a biradical polarizing agent and then melting it rapidly with a pulse of 10.6 microm infrared radiation, followed by observation of the NMR signal in the presence of decoupling. In the absence of polarization losses due to relaxation, the enhancement should be epsilon+ = epsilon(T(obs)/T(mu)(wave)), where epsilon+ is the observed enhancement, epsilon is the enhancement obtained at the temperature where the polarization process occurs, and T(mu)(wave) and T(obs) are the polarization and observation temperatures, respectively. In a single experimental cycle, we observe room-temperature enhancements, epsilon(dagger), of 13C signals in the range 120-400 when using a 140 GHz gyrotron microwave source, T(mu)(wave) = 90 K, and T(obs) = 300 K. In addition, we demonstrate that the experiment can be recycled to perform signal averaging that is customary in contemporary NMR spectroscopy. Presently, the experiment is applicable to samples that can be repeatedly frozen and thawed. TJ-DNP could also serve as the initial polarization step in experiments designed for rapid acquisition of multidimensional spectra.